House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, May 21, 2026

Two Consumer Priorities for Affordability

• REJECT amendment to include the Railway Safety Act

• SUPPORT the Fong Amendment for next-generation mobility

For affordability and for consumers, the Consumer Choice Center urges the Committee to take two actions during markup of the BUILD America 250 Act.

REJECT: Amendments importing the Railway Safety Act(S.3903 / H.R.7748)

Members are expected to offer the Railway Safety Act of 2026 — or its provisions — as an amendment during markup.

Framed as a safety reform, the RSA would impose prescriptive operational mandates: two-person crew requirements, congressionally-specified defect-detector standards, and inspection protocols.

The BUILD America 250 Act is the wrong vehicle for that approach.

• Freight rail is the “middle mile” for nearly every product Americans buy. Food, energy, and finished goods almost all travel by rail at some point between port, factory, and warehouse. Cost increases pass directly to the prices working families pay.
• Operational mandates raise costs without measurably improving safety. Locking in early-2000s practices via federal statute prevents adoption of cost-saving technology — precision control systems, automated wayside detection — that improves safety outcomes faster than crew-size rules.
• Safety regulation belongs at the FRA, not in statute. Performance-based rulemaking lets standards evolve with technology. One-size-fits-all statutory mandates do not.

CCC’s policy primer The Consumer Case for Reimagining and Innovating Railroad Policy documents how central-planning approaches to rail regulation historically raise shipping prices and reduce competition. 

SUPPORT: Rep. Fong’s amendment on liability protections for next-generation mobility

The 2005 Graves Amendment (49 U.S.C. § 30106) ended the practice of plaintiff lawyers suing rental and leasing companies for accidents they did nothing to cause. It worked: rental rates fell, insurance pools stabilized, consumers saved billions. 

Twenty years later, plaintiff lawyers have migrated to next-generation mobility (rideshare, peer-to-peer car-sharing, and delivery platforms) using the same playbook the Graves Amendment was designed to stop.

The BUILD America 250 Act is the right vehicle for this upgrade.

• The 2026 reauthorization is the right vehicle. SAFETEA-LU (the 2005 reauthorization) is where Graves was originally enacted. The BUILD America 250 Act already addresses vicarious liability for autonomous trucks; a one-line extension covers TNCs, P2P car-sharing, and delivery platforms.
• Florida proved the savings are real. After Florida’s 2023 tort overhaul, the share of an average Uber fare going to mandated insurance dropped two percentage points in a year. Statewide auto insurance rates fell 20%. Riders saved tens of millions.
• The cost to taxpayers is zero. No appropriation, no new agency, no rulemaking — a narrow preemption of vicarious-liability claims, with direct-negligence claims fully preserved.
• The author of the original amendment chairs this committee. The most consequential consumer-cost reform Congress can include in the BUILD America 250 Act is the one that bears Chairman Graves’s own name.
• Rep. Fong’s amendment (Fong 041) addresses these measures and more, and deserve support 

SOURCES

• The Consumer Case for Reimagining and Innovating Railroad Policy (CCC, 2023)

• Time to Clip the Wings of the Car Crash Lawyers (Ossowski, CCC, May 2026)

• Railway Safety Act of 2026 —S.3903  /  H.R.7748

• Fong Amendment —041